Still plummeting to the ground, Uran screamed with such magnitude that someone's ears must have bled from hearing her. She screamed as she plummeted down to the earth, surely with enough force that she would break every single one of her metallic bones or something far worse than that. The closer the girl was to the ground, the louder her screams became. When Uran was only a few feet away from the ground below, she suddenly found that she had been scooped up again by Astro, who then started laughing as if her screams of terror had been one big joke.

"You thought that was funny?!" Uran screeched as the two flew away from where Uran almost crashed.

"Well… yeah!" Astro laughed with good nature. Uran was absolutely livid.

"You ugly little motherfu-"

"Hey Uran, do you want to do a loop-de-loop?"

"Hell no!"

"Fine. Your loss then..."

Uran wasn't pleased at all by her special ride, so Astro did eventually decide to let her down on top of a skyscraper that sat close to the center of the city. The unsatisfiable human girl let out a grumpy little 'humph' before sitting on the roof like an angry little brat- and in some ways, she was. Astro studied her for a moment or two before getting close to the end of the roof to look out at the world below. It was Uran's turn to study him now.

She could remember him, just a little bit. But it was… weird seeing him moving around as if he were a human too. It was the same feeling she had when she saw her mother laying in her casket, except… in reverse…? Back then, it had been the face of a living being now dead- but now it was the face of the dead now living. It was just so… weird…

"So," Uran then started to say as if nothing bothered her, "You've succeeded in kidnapping me from my own bedroom, almost killed me by 'accidentally' letting go of me while we were flying, and now you plan on pushing me over a skyscraper? Geez, if you only need harmless information out of me, then I feel bad for the people you don't like."

Astro looked over at Uran with a silly little smile on his face.

"Didn't I say I was sorry for dropping you?" he teased. Uran raised an eyebrow.

"No." she said to him in a flat tone.

Astro's face fell. "Oh… I… oh..."

With some sense of guilt now, Astro walked over to where Uran sat and carefully placed himself next to her. He sat far enough away that he wouldn't be touching her, but he was still close enough that they could have poked each other if one had felt like it. They only sat next to each other, staring up into the dark, dismal night sky. It was quite awhile before either of them spoke up.

"You know..." Uran slowly started to say, "The motto of Metro City is 'a means to an end'."

Astro looked up and over at Uran, but didn't say anything in fear that he would ruin her train of thought.

"In the beginning, this city was just a tiny town of refuge- a place where people from all over the world would come to recollect their thoughts before going back out again. It didn't matter where you were on life or what you had done, Metro City was there to help you through it all.

"No one is quite sure when or how robots started to work more around the city; perhaps it was something that was always going on but no one was aware of until much later when the robot populace exceeded the human one. It was when everyone became suddenly aware of the robots that the law about having robots that looked human or under a certain height. A mother lost her child when it was still pretty young, and her husband constructed a robot that looked almost exactly like their kid. When she saw what her husband had created, the woman freaked out to the point of suicide. Heartbroken over the loss of his son and his wife, the man went to the Ministry of Science and proposed a law to be sent all around the city that no robot, no matter how sophisticated his circuits were, to not closely resemble a human in any way or to be under four feet tall."

Uran then looked at Astro with an unreadable look.

"You're really screwed when they find out that you're not human." she then said to him. The android looked at her for a little bit before putting his head down in shame. He knew- he kept being reminded of it after all. But it was redundant, and sometimes he just wished people would stop talking about it.

"I didn't know Tenma personally." Uran then started to say. Astro jumped hearing Tenma's name out of her lips and looked at her. Uran didn't seem to acknowledge his sudden interest, but she continued any way. "But he created the skeleton that I have now. They used… nanites, I think, to place the skeleton around the original bones. There was this huge process that involved the nanites coming in through the bloodstream and then they melted in some way that enveloped the original bones. I don't know much more than that, really, I'm sure there's this big document about it somewhere. I didn't know that he also hid that theory of his in those nanites; I don't think Professor O'Shay did either..."

"Theory?" Astro asked. "What theory?"

"The Kokoro Theory," Uran told him, "Or, the Theory of the Robotic Heart. It was said to be Doctor Tenma's greatest idea in the development of robots and androids. His theory detailed a plan wherein a robot can be created to have the same emotional developments as humans. He believed that a robot could be able to be mad, or sad- maybe even fall in love. All you had to do was tell them to feel emotions- you could remind them that they had brains of their own, so they could experience their own feelings too. He even had the idea that, if a robot had strong enough emotions, then they could even earn a soul."

"He really believed that?" Astro asked. Uran gave a small affirming nod.

"Every part of it." Uran agreed. "He was determined, and heartbroken. That alone can inspire the impossible by itself."

"That theory's impossible." Astro decided. Uran looked at Astro with a raised eyebrow.

"You're here, aren't you?" she asked him simply enough. For a moment, Astro did not know what she was talking about until it hit him.

He had Kokoro.

Maybe that was why Professor O'Shay had been so quiet to Astro about his origins. Astro wasn't just designed to be a robot that looked just like a human, but he was also created to simulate the same emotions that humans could feel as well. Had the man that created the Kokoro Theory, Tenma, mean to give him this ability? What reason did he have to do that?

There were so many questions Astro now had that still haven't gone answered. His mind was now reeling with all the other questions that he now had- it almost made him feel dizzy.

"Uran..." he then softly asked, "Do you want to fly again?"

For a long time, the girl only looked at him.

"Are you going to drop me again?" she warily asked.

"Not unless you want me to." he promised, even crossing his heart to show that he meant it. "Android's honor."

Uran looked him over again before the corner of her lips formed into a smile.

"Okay." she finally agreed. "Let's ride."